Gainward HD 4850 1024MB GS Graphics Card Review. Page 9

Graphics cards equipped with 1GB of video memory are not so extra-ordinary anymore. But does that much memory do any real good especially for a relatively inexpensive mainstream solution? Our today’s review of the Gainward graphics accelerator will help us answer this question.

Left 4 Dead

The game runs on the Source engine and has an integrated benchmark, but the latter does not report the bottom speed information.

The Source engine is not very demanding, so the amount of graphics memory has no influence on the card’s performance. The overclocking results indicate that the low GPU frequency is the main drawback of the Radeon HD 4850. The overclocked Gainward HD 4850 1024MB GS is as fast as the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, a solution from a higher class, and even faster than it at 1920x1200. An excellent result for an inexpensive graphics card!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

To achieve a playable speed in this game we disabled FSAA and such resource-consuming options as Sun rays, Wet surfaces and Volumetric Smoke. We use the Enhanced full dynamic lighting (DX10) mode for our test and additionally enabled the DirectX 10.1 mode for the ATI cards.

The increased amount of graphics memory doesn’t help the Gainward card in this game whereas the overclocked GPU and memory frequencies come in handy, increasing the card’s performance to playable level at every resolution including 1920x1200. As opposed to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, the Gainward is almost silent, costs less, and can thus be called an optimal choice for playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Clear Sky.